The African Diaspora (712-718)

Intro:
The African Diaspora - the dispersal of African peoples and their descendants. They often resisted their bondage and formed hybrid cultural traditions that were a combination of African, European, and American traditions.
Plantation Societies
Intro:
Spanish colonists first established plantations in modern day Haiti.
Cash Crops

• Many plantations focused on the production of sugar, tobacco, rice, indigo, cotton and coffee.
• Elements they had in common - They all specialized in an agricultural product, they all relied on slave labor and a sharp racial division of labor.

Regional Differences

• A large amount of slaves from the slave trade went to the Caribbean.
• In the Caribbean a lot of slaves died because of tropical diseases.
• On North American plantations supported slave families and that's why they imported more female slaves.

Resistance to Slavery

• Some slaves resisted in small ways like by working slowly for the plantation and diligently for their own gardens.
• Other slaves ran away and formed maroon communities in the mountains.
• Maroon communities - Escaped slaves who form their own community with other slaves. They raid plantations for tools and to recruit other slaves.

Slave Revolts

• Slave rebellions were usually rare but plantation owners were terrified of it.
• The slave rebellions didn't lead to an end of slavery completely because of the Europeans having arms, horses and military forces.
• Only in Saint Domingue did a slave revolt lead to the end of slavery and the Haitian revolution.

Slavery and Economic Development

• Because of slave labor the world was able to extract more minerals and build prosperous new societies to emerge into the modern era.

The Making of African American Cultural Traditions
Intro:
Slaves created their own traditions that were a mix of both African and American rituals.

African and Creole Languages

• In South Carolina 3/4 of the population was African slaves and they communicated in creole languages like Gullah and Geechee.

African American Religions(Kevin)

• The slaves' languages and religions combined elements from different societies
• Some slaves shipped out of Africa were Christians and many other slaves converted to Christianity after their arrival to the western hemisphere
• Syncretic religions developed mainly in plantation societies
• Because these religions developed under conditions of slavery, they didn't create an institutional structure or make a hierarchy of priests and other church officials
• Popular syncretic religions among slaves: Vodou in Haiti, Santeria in Cuba, and Candomble in Brazil
• All the syncretic, African-American religions drew inspiration from Christianity because they met in parish churches, they sought personal salvation, and they made use of European Christian property like holy water, candles, and statues
• The African-American religions associated African deities with Christian saints and relied on African rituals like drumming, dancing, and sacrificing animals
• These religions also preserved beliefs in spirits and supernatural powers: magic, sorcery, witchcraft, and spirit possession all played important roles in African-American religions

African American Cultural Traditions

• Slaves introduced African foods to Caribbean and American societies and they helped give rise to distinctive hybrid cuisines
• Slaves intoduced rice cultivation to tropical and subtropical regions, including South Carolina, Georgia, and Louisiana
• Slaves also built houses, fashioned clay pots, and wove grass baskets in west African styles

The End of the Slave Trade and the Abolition of Slavery
Intro:
The American and French revolutions stimulated the abolitionist cause. The American call for "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness" and the French appeal for "liberty, equality, and fraternity" suggested that there was a universal human right to freedom and equality.
Olaudah Equiano (1745-1797) from west Africa

• Most notable freed slave who contributed to the abolitionist cause by writing books that exposed the brutality of institutional slavery
• Captured at age ten in his native Benin (in modern Nigeria)
• Worked as a slave in the West Indies, Virginia, and Pennsylvania
• In 1789, he published an autobiography detailing his experiences as a slave and a free man
• His efforts strengthened the antislavery movement in England

The Economic Costs of Slavery

• Plantations, slavery, and the slave trade continued to flourish as long as they were profitable, notwithstanding the efforts of abolitionists
• Possibility of rebellion forced slave societies to maintain expensive military forces
• In late eighteenth century, a rapid expansion of Caribbean sugar production led to declining prices and at the same time as African slave traders and European merchants were increasing the prices they charged for fresh slaves
• As profitablility of slavery declined, Europeans began to shift their investments from sugarcane and slaves to newly emerging manufacturing industries
• Investors found that wage labor in factories was cheaper than slave labor on plantations
• European investors realized that leaving Africans in Africa, where they could secure raw materials and buy manufactured goods in exchange, was good business

End of the Slave Trade

• In 1803, Denmark abolished trade in slaves, and other lands soon followed like Great Britain in 1807, the U.S. in 1808, France in 1814, the Netherlands in 1817, and Spain in 1845
• End of legal commerce in slaves didn't abolish the institution of slavery itself
• the British naval squadron sought to prevent the shipping of slaves across the Atlantic by patrolling the west coast of Africa conducting search and seizure operations
• The last documented ship that carried slaves across the Atlantic arrived in Cuba in 1867

The Abolition of Slavery

• Emancipation of all slaves came in 1833 in British colonies, 1848 in French colonies, 1865 in the U.S., 1886 in Cuba, and 1888 in Brazil.
• Saudi Arabia and Angola abolished slavery in the 1960s
• Even today, millions of people live in various forms of servitude, like contract labor, servile marriages, debt bondage, and sham adoptions, mainly in Africa, south Asia, and Latin America

Timeline

1441: Beginning of the Portuguese slave trade
1464-1493: Reign of Sunni Ali
1464-1591: Songhay empire
1506-1542: Reign of King Afonso I of Kongo
1623-1663: Reign of Queen Nzinga of Ndongo
1706: Execution of Dona Beatriz
1745-1797: Life of Olaudah Equiano
1793-1804: Haitian revolution
1807: End of the British slave trade
1865: Abolition of slavery in the United States